


gentleness

by tyrellis



Series: moments in space [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Homesickness, Mentions of Other Voltron Paladins, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 07:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13829490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyrellis/pseuds/tyrellis
Summary: Allura had always thought she'd be too busy for love. Busy running Voltron, busy becoming a paladin, busy searching for Lance. Love sneaks up on her regardless.*Must be read with series.





	gentleness

**Author's Note:**

> hello! i think i mentioned aaages ago (chapter 7??? 8?) of mos that i wanted to write this thing, and it took actually Commissioning the moment to write it properly. hunk/allura is such a soft warm ship, and especially in this au they rly lean a lot on each other for support, so i thought it's only right that i demonstrate that in Actual Writing for one of their povs, instead of relying on lance and keith aslkdjsalk
> 
> speaking of, please view the commission [here](http://cindersart.tumblr.com/post/171398347310/hunk-n-allura-commission-for-tyrellis-d-based-on)! and u kno..feel free to rb it..Let The People See... the art is beautiful and the artist was so kind and swift so i'd defs recommend if u have the money !
> 
> uh anyway again i reiterate this makes Zero sense w/o reading the first fic in this series, made of stone, which is hella intense, uh, so anyone who's read that... like this takes place chapter 8, right after it's discovered lance has lost his memory of his family, and before hunk and allura come down to keith's room looking for lance with the notebook drawings of his family. lance's kidnapping, the time spent searching for him, and various incidents that happen up until that moment of time are all referred to, but not really in any depth. the focus is mainly on allura and her feelings to hunk and how that keeps her grounded throughout everything. oh, and the mos klance is referred to and discussed a little but again, focused on hallura. oh and one last thing... yo Fuck what voltron did to allura's mother.... she was basically an allura clone and thats weak and lazy and i refuse it. anyway !
> 
> otherwise.... idk when the next chap of mos will come out;;; uni is a Lot atm, and since this was an event that had already happened and i sort of knew the parameters already of it and i'd Thought abt it for ages it came rly fast. so anyway please enjoy! its much softer than mos is at any rate ;;;

And I will wait for you tonight  
You're here forever and you're by my side  
I've been waiting all my life  
To feel your heart as it's keeping time  
[Stay Alive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NucJk8TxyRg), Jose Gonzalez

\--

It takes Allura a decaphoeb to fall in love with Hunk.

Afterwards, she's surprised it took so long.

During, she's mostly concerned with letting people down - her paladins, her beloved, her parents...herself. Love hadn't even been on her _mind_ when those five strangers had burst into her castle, her _home_ , all those phoebs ago. She'd been concerned with her _father_ , her whole family, whole _planet_ and _people_ , and how suddenly- suddenly they were just gone. And suddenly she was the only female Altean left in the universe, and Coran was the only Altean male, and these five bizarre-looking _strangers_ were supposed to pilot her lions and be her paladins, and Hunk-

Well, she'd noticed he was handsome, sweet, and incredibly intelligent. But Keith had been more hotheaded, Lance more flirty, Shiro much more of a leader, and so it was them who caught her attention first. She had to figure out how to keep Keith calm, because heavens knew he seemed incapable of doing it himself, and how to keep Lance focused on the tasks at hand, from showing off too much, and Shiro...had nightmares. He'd tread the corridors at night in total silence, and sometimes, plagued by the same problems, they'd meet in the middle. So, with Coran, they'd learnt how to treat these things, Altean medicine Shiro was hesitant about at first, soothing teas that at least relaxed the mind enough that they got some vargas of restful sleep.

Then _Pidge_ revealing she wasn't a boy, which hadn't exactly been shocking since Allura had already found out, and dealing with her looking for her brother, looking for any rebel help in _general_ , then everything with Shiro going missing and the shuffle in paladins and Allura becoming a paladin herself, speaking with Lance about taking responsibility, watching helplessly as Keith spurned his _own_ as the black paladin, how, when they went to rescue the real Shiro and instead lost Lance, everything she'd worked so hard to create fell to pieces in her hands.

Keith blames himself; Allura knows this.

He shouldn't, though. Keith may have been black paladin, and Coran may be older, but _Allura_ is the true leader. She knows this, they all know this. She is royalty, she is the last of woman of her kind, and she has powers even she hasn't felt out the edges of yet. Allura should've spotted the trouble - should've manoeuvred out of her fight to aid Lance. Instead, she stayed focused on Haggar and her druids, and when Lance disappeared, Allura didn't even realise. It was only when a half-second of calm draped over the room Shiro had been concealed in that the five of them had looked around and taken in the scene: Lotor gone with his generals, Haggar knocked out but still breathing, her druids already coming to, Zarkon still unconscious on his bed, and Kuron dead.

And Lance, Allura had realised, looking round with wide eyes, gone.

"Where," Hunk had said, breathing ragged and bayard still weaponised, heavy in both hands, "where is he? Where's Lance? Keith?"

Keith, who had Shiro's arm over his shoulders, looking around wildly, too. Sweat on his temples, his cheeks, his chest heaving.

"I-" Keith had said, voice rough as grit on the ground. "I don't- he was- fighting the, fighting the..."

"The generals," Allura had whispered, and Keith's mouth had closed with an audible click of his teeth. "He was fighting the generals, at least three of them. Pidge was messing around with the big one, a-and Hunk was helping me with the druids... You and Kuron were fighting Lotor..."

"Where _is_  he," Hunk had _demanded_ , and Allura had frozen, mouth agape, trying not to lose her composure, because Lance wasn't there. Lance wasn't _there_ , he wasn't on the ground, half-dead, he wasn't on his feet, cracking jokes about the galra's escape, wasn't even round the edges of the room, searching for their quick escape. There was no sign of him.

Except the red bayard, fallen on the ground where the generals had been. As soon as Allura spotted it, five sets of eyes had fixated on it. Allura was closest; she'd darted forward, taken it in her hand. It was cold, she'd realised, which meant it must have dropped its rifle form a while ago. Which meant _Lance_  must have dropped it a while ago.

Which meant he'd disappeared, and she hadn't even _noticed_.

"He's gone," Pidge had said, and her eyes had gone wide as everyone's head swivelled to her. "I-I mean- he can't- he can't be _gone_ , he can't be, he can't be, he can't-"

"No," Hunk had said, "no way, we would've seen, someone would've _known_ -"

"I saw," had said Keith, and Allura could _hear_ how he swallowed, how lost his eyes already were, looking for Lance. "I saw them- talking to him, or, or _something_ , but I couldn't get over, and then- and then-"

"He can't be gone," Pidge had whispered.

"No no no," Hunk had said, over and over again, his bayard fizzling back into its unweaponised state before dropping out of existence completely, and he'd started pacing the room, reaching maybe five steps away before Haggar's eyes had opened and a sharp, menacing smile took over her face.

"We have to leave," Keith had whispered as Haggar got to her feet, inspecting the room with a pleasant smile, nodding at the destruction that wrecked it. "We h-have to."

"We _can't_ ," Pidge had said.

"Can't?" Haggar had said, and Keith had let out a growl that, for a moment, didn't even sound _human_. "Missing something, paladins?"

"Go to hell!" Keith had roared, but it only made her laugh, the kind of laughter that grates against the skin, physical claws scratching against the insides of Allura's head, tearing her thoughts into pieces. She still hears it.

"I _won't_  leave him behind!" Hunk had yelled, but something purple and yellow and ugly was brewing in Haggar's hands, and Allura had taken a deep breath, and said some of the words she most regretted in her life:

"We have to," she'd said, and then, "Find a way out. I can hold her off."

They found a way out. Allura held Haggar off. They returned to the castleship, a paladin returned and a paladin lost, and when Coran had surveyed them, brows rising and eyes going wide, Hunk had burst into tears and stormed off.

\--

Five phoebs.

That's how long it really took.

\--

"Hunk," she whispers, standing in the doorway of one of the observation decks. Lance used to come here, Hunk once said. "Hunk, do you want company?"

He nods, facing away from her, staring out into the open emptiness of space. Maybe he still spies Lance out there, hurtling miles and miles away from them, never to return. That is, technically, the reality they are dealing with - the essence of old Lance, pre-captivity Lance, is gone from them. The boy Allura once knew, forever lost to space.

She sits beside Hunk, folding her legs to one side so their knees touch. Hunk likes physical touch when he needs comfort, so she always starts with something small, fingers touching, or shoulders pressed lightly together. Lets him set the boundaries. Sometimes, when Lance was still gone, he craved the touch of anyone, blindly grabbing whoever was nearest and squeezing them tight in his arms. Others, he stood tall and lonely, refused comfort of any sort.

But he doesn't move away now.

"I hate this," he finally mutters, and Allura shuts her eyes, nods. "I really hate this."

"I know," she says, doesn't mean it exactly the same way he does but it's near enough that it doesn't matter. "I do, too."

"I just-" He sighs heavily beside her, and she opens her eyes again, slides her gaze over to him. His face is lit by the soft glow of the deck, and she can see it reflected amongst the stars, dark brown with that orange bandana keeping his fringe out his eyes, his eyes aren't closed but they're faced low enough that it almost looks like it, and his hands are caged in his lap, wringing themselves constantly. When they are alone like this, he looks so tired. "He said he was _okay_. He said he remembered _everything_. But he forgot- he forgot the most important stuff! His family, which was already going! A-and the garrison, Allura, you don't _understand_  how much it meant to him that he even got _in_  - he had to take the test twice because his English wasn't good enough the first time - and he worked so _hard_  to get into the fighter class and even when he didn't make it he still worked so hard! And he called his family almost every night! A-and yeah, we'd skip class sometimes but- but it honestly was to learn the sims better! And we'd go out to the city at the weekends with Pidge or the others and... And that was his _life_. Allura, that was our _life_ , just normal students at a galaxy garrison, a-and there wasn't supposed to be anything special about us, other than that we were really really smart. We weren't... We weren't supposed to do _any_  of this..."

It hurts, a little, that she can never relate to this. Allura's studies were always led with the intent that someday she would rule Altea - she studied normal things, like history, fighting, languages, but also etiquette and planetary customs and everything about Voltron. That _wasn't_ normal. Allura lived on Altea but she lived _in_  the castle, with its bustling court and all her tutors, carers, her father engaging in fascinating scientific discoveries and interplanetary diplomacy with the other paladins while her mother trained the military and dealt with in-castle issues.

How she _misses_ them.

That isn't very typical, either. Nothing about her life has been the kind of normal Hunk talks about, living at school, attending classes with his friends, sneaking off for mischief or indeed just further learning, sitting up on rooftops, watching sunsets, trying to turn Pidge from just their teammate to an actual friend. Nothing in her life has been like that. And even now, this past decaphoeb or so with the paladins, it still isn't quite normal. The boys ran around like silly teenagers sometimes and Pidge definitely still doesn't shower every day, and sometimes she will enter the common room and Shiro will be napping on the sofa, but...that still isn't _normal_. It's their normal, their version of idyllic, but it isn't really. Moments of joy snatched from the tsunami force of a war gathering always over their shoulder.

And these past phoebs especially...

It took five phoebs, really. But she falls in love with Hunk more and more every day. She used to be afraid, actually.

She still is. Her hand trembles when she reaches out to untangle his and take one in her own. His skin is so warm, always. Allura wonders how it's like that; her skin is so cool, a side-effect of the castle self-regulating temperature. It's always just a little bit cold. He is so _human_ beside her, living and breathing, heart beating in tandem with hers. So much the _opposite_ of Lance, of whatever he is now. He scares her. She doesn't recognise him at all.

"I'm sorry, Hunk," she whispers finally, squeezing his hand tight. "If- if I could've done _anything_... Anything to get him back sooner, I-I would have. If I could've prevented...any of it..."

"Me too," mumbles Hunk. "It would've been so easy... Send someone else down to the beach, stop him from getting into the pods the first time, if we'd only... If only..."

"He's so different now," she says, and her breath escapes her in a soft sigh. "He's so...cold."

"I hate it," Hunk says again. "I can't believe we're going to Earth. It doesn't- I know it might help. But do his family deserve the shock they're going to go through, seeing him like that? What if he doesn't remember? What if he still wants to fight? How do we explain everything that's happened? None of us even speak Spanish. Not enough to keep up with his family. This is..."

"It's a worst-case scenario," she says. "If only I'd prepared for this sort of-"

"Don't," Hunk murmurs, and when he lets go of her hand it's only to slide his arm round his waist, and Allura feels an ice wall guarding her heart melt instantly, relaxing into his side. Soft, but still firm, something solid to lean on. How desperately she has needed someone like him. How desperately she pretended she didn't. "Allura...who could've seen this coming? A-and Lance, of all of us? It's like...they _knew_  what he meant to us all... They must've, right? They had to have known..."

"The druid told Keith Lance wasn't her first choice," Allura points out in a hushed voice, and Hunk's eyes squeeze close, his head dropping further. "Maybe it didn't matter who they took. Just- _one_ of us. Any of us. It would've had the same effect."

"It just isn't _fair_ ," Hunk grinds out, and Allura presses her free hand against their already entwined hands in his lap. "That he forgot his own _family_  - they're the most important people in his life! You don't understand, what it's like- they all _adore_  each other. They're such a- such a _good_  family, and Lance, he, he really _loved_  them! And now he can't even remember! It's like they took away everything that made him _Lance_  and left him like- like _this_!"

"I know it isn't fair," says Allura. "I know, I know. At least Keith was there - he said he tried to protect Lance, didn't he? At least- at least he... He killed the druid. Prevented it from getting worse."

"I don't trust it," Hunk mutters. "Whatever's going on between them - have you noticed how close they suddenly are? I don't... I heard Keith screaming over the comms. I know he loves Lance, but... And- and when Lance got out, said he remembered everything - he looked right _at_ Keith, and- and Keith looked so _relieved_... I just... What if something's going on? And that blows up too? We can't- it's too much, too much, it's all so _much_."

"I'm...praying there's nothing there," she says, tries not to cast her mind back to the way Keith had _stared_ when Lance got out the healing pod, the way Lance had grinned right back. She can't think of it right now, whatever it means, whether it's good or bad or _important_ or not. She doesn't want it to be. Takes the moment of quiet to press her head against his shoulder, focuses on the easy way Hunk tips his head till it rests on the top of her's.

No, she doesn't understand that moment between Lance and Keith today. No, she doesn't even understand what happened on the _beach_ almost a movement ago, only that she arrived on the scene to find Keith frozen and Lance torn through with blasts, that pink sand gone red with blood. No, she despairs, she really doesn't understand anything that's happened since Lance woke up the first time from the healing pod, much less what the _hell_ happened when he disappeared.

But what can she do? She doesn't know how to _help_ him, and he refuses to be helped, anyway. He wants to _fight_ , he wants to kill, he wants to train to excess regardless of injury, and he doesn't want to talk to them. He doesn't _want_ to know about who he was, who he _used to be_ , what he used to do. They're forcing him to, anyway. Are there any other options? Keith looked at her like it was crazy to consider going to Earth on the off-chance it could revive Lance's memory, but hasn't she sat up every night for _phoebs_  trying to figure out what to do with him? There's no easy answer. There hasn't been since he strode out the healing pod a whole different person. She's _tried_  to speak to him, bared her heart and burst into tears before him, and he was solid and unmoving as a rock. She tried to understand him, his head, his new legs, tried to figure out where this change was _coming_ from, but Lance didn't have any answers, and even if he did, would he give him? He _likes_ who he is, and to offer up answers would be to pinpoint where the change came from, allow Allura to try and get rid of it.

Not to mention everyone else... Keith, and how he acts, and how he _hides_ , and how he and Shiro don't really talk anymore. Pidge, combing through the useless info the druids hid behind those videos on the off-chance there's anything _remotely_ helpful hidden in the rubbish. Coran, and how quietly he works now when he thinks no one pays attention, how he sits, endlessly patient, when Lance is in cryo, how tirelessly he works when Allura isn't sure he's getting any more sleep than her. Shiro, who can't quite look at Lance, who obviously thought the whole time Lance was missing that he'd be able to _help_ , because he'd been taken, too. But Lance brushed him off, and so easily.

All of them, so easily.

 _All_ of them.

She closes her eyes briefly, pushing infinitely closer to Hunk, the warmth of him, the softness with strength hidden just beneath, the way he doesn't budge an inch beneath her own weight. His hands are so soft beneath hers.

The universe outside seems both endless and yet finite. Somewhere out there are all the little pieces of Lance now lost to them. Somewhere out there is a ship, or a base, or another facility, run by the druids who did this to Lance. Someone out there is _Lotor_ , who disappeared with Lance then completely separated himself from whatever was going on with him. Did the druids request that a paladin was brought to them, or are they acting under Lotor's actions? What could he possibly have _wanted_  with Lance? With any of them? Was it really just to turn a human being bit by bit into a living bomb, and send it back into the castle to turn the whole thing to ruin?

And how fitting, then, for it to be Lance - the one paladin who stood before a virtual _stranger_  to take the brunt of a different bomb the galra had planted here.

Lance wasn't the druids' first choice, he was just the most vulnerable one at the time of attack - and yet, it seems premeditated. It would hurt if this happened to any paladin, but...Lance? Who had the biggest, most loving family waiting back on Earth? Who was friendliest with everyone, even strange aliens they'd meet while saving planets? Whose inane jokes and attempts at flirting somehow kept the atmosphere round the ship from getting too serious? And whose absence sent them all to their own private brink, drove them to isolation lest arguments flare up from nothing...

No, the druids didn't know what they were doing when they took Lance, but they didn't need to. They took him anyway. It ruined everything.

Allura hasn't slept properly in _phoebs_.

\--

It had been one moment, though. One moment, in an entire decaphoeb, that changed how she thought about him.

She had truly thought she wasn't so quick to fall.

\--

It's worst for Hunk, this whole business. He doesn't say it aloud, like he's scared to confirm the agony this entire ordeal has put him through. Sometimes, though, he confesses tiny truths in times like these, in the aftermath of the horror shows that now dominate their lives, little bits and pieces that made up his and Lance's lives, and lately he's taken to writing them down in his notebook, as if afraid that, since Lance has forgotten everything, Hunk might forget, too.

She has it with her now. She'd followed Hunk from the dining room but then changed her mind, made her way to Hunk's room and back to the lift without crossing Lance or Keith, then found the observation lounge Hunk has taken to straying to. His notebook is...incredible. Or, she thinks so, at least. Paper and leather and so _physical_ , a weight in her hand, up her sleeve. Allura writes things down - writes _everything_  down, she wouldn't survive with all this insanity locked away in her own head - but it's on her holographic computer, on her holopads, on the tiny screen that flickers to life when she presses the right button on her combat suit. It doesn't carry the same weight as this notebook.

It's filled with things she can barely comprehend. Engineering sketches, things Hunk remembers from his time as a student, sketching out engines and energy cores and the inside of gear boxes, labelling every single component, and talking it through with her until she fully understood what it did. Sketches of Lance's legs, his imaginings of what they look like without the layer of skin-like material on top, how everything might fit together, what exactly is wrong with the left leg. And there are...drawings.

Not mechanical ones, not blueprints, but...people drawings. Portraits of Allura, from back before she ever looked at him that way. Mock ups of missing posters for himself, Lance, and Pidge, except he couldn't decide if they'd use their official garrison portraits or a photo from home, so he'd split the page to do both. Immortalised Lance in his youth, the Lance that doesn't exist anymore. The Pidge whose biggest problem was searching for her brother and father, not fighting a war that had entrapped almost all her family. And a Hunk who...seemed brighter, somehow. Allura doesn't understand how he managed to capture it so well, but Hunk had drawn that particular series on a terribly hollow night when Lance was missing, when he was numb from crying and Allura had just had a shouting match with Shiro about whether or not they should chase down some errant galra ship. So Allura looks at them, but she says nothing, moves on.

Drawings of family, too. His own. But he knows, or- he _knew_ Lance's family, right? He'd visited them, he _told_  her that. And Lance- he can't remember now. And...he might never remember. But... But could there be anything worse, than to have your son returned to you and he doesn't even know your name, recognise your face? Allura can't bear the thought. She _won't_ allow it to become reality.

"Look," Allura murmurs, and though it cracks her heart to ten million pieces to do it, she lifts her head from Hunk's shoulder and reaches into her sleeve. Hunk's notepad is hidden there, so she extracts it, the pen clipped to it, and says, "I had an idea... You know his family, don't you? And you can draw, so... so I thought.... To remind him. If he goes in- if he d-doesn't remember- at least he'll have- _some_ thing-"

"You want me to..." Hunk begins, and he pulls his arm from around her waist to take hold of the notepad and pen. Allura misses the heat immediately, presses harder against his side to retain as much of it as possible, and a smile tugs at the corner of his lips as he glances down at her, eyes impossibly warm and soft and _tender_ , a clearing of green grass warmed by the sun, his eyelids brimming a little with unshed tears as though dew soaks any place she may sit.

So easy to fall.

One moment, really.

"Allura," he whispers, and yes, just like this, how the smile coils first at the edge of his mouth but grows to lift his lips entirely, his cheeks, how his eyes turn to dual suns melting away the snow that has gathered in these ice cold months of fear and confusion. How so easily he shifts to become the centre of her world. How _lonely_  she has been, how hard she had to fight every day to pretend she wasn't, that she was in control, that she _knew_ what she was _doing_.

But she didn't. How could she? Quintant after quintant, movement after movement, every galra ship they extracted data from said nothing of Lance, higher up galra they questioned knew nothing, and Lotor, asides from a few scraps that cost him a general, had gone quiet. There were no leads. She'd started dreaming up that there were, that they _did_ find Lance, and he was wrecked beyond belief. In hindsight, it almost feels like prophecy.

"Allura," Hunk says again, and she can't help but smile back, feel the weight that sits eternally on her shoulders slip away, if only for a second. "How did you even..."

"His mother will be waiting for him," she says, and thinks of her own mother, dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair. Allura looks too much like her father, she knows. "His father, too. How could we let him see them without knowing their names, their faces? I- Hunk, I couldn't bear it. I couldn't."

"I know," he says, and he cups her face in one hand. "I couldn't either. But- I just... I can't bear the thought of, of having to draw them out and name them and- and _show_  him who his own family is- Allura, I- I-"

His eyes brim so easily. Hunk has never been afraid to _feel_ things, fully and intensely that it makes Allura so jealous she wants to weep, too. "It's scary," she says, and takes a deep breath because her voice almost cracks. "But...maybe it's scarier for Lance. We don't- we just don't know."

"Lance says he can't feel anything."

"He told Keith he didn't want to forget anything," she reminds him, and Hunk nods, presses his forehead against her's. "He feels _something_. He- he must."

Hunk sighs, long and deep against her, and Allura stays still, a hand on his thigh, the other on his shoulder, and she just lets herself _relish_  in it. Just for the moment, for a moment is all they can ever snatch. His lips, when they finally, _finally_ , press against hers, are full, soft, and endlessly comforting. Hunk is a spot of sunshine Allura wants to lay in forever. A bed of moss, a cushion of flowers, a home to stay safe in, stay at _peace_.

When they kiss, the world stops. The universe ceases its existence outside of them. The gods themselves sculpted the passage of time to bring the two of them together. Here, with Hunk, is safety. Peace from the war constantly raging, inside her ship and out of it. Here, she can pretend, if only for a tiny moment snatched in space, that everything might just work out perfectly.

In the end, that's all it came down to.

Over a decaphoeb they've known each other, and five phoebs they spent together searching for Lance, but, in the end, that's all it took.

One single moment to fall in love.

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed ! dont forget my main blog is [here](http://tyrellis.tumblr.com) and my vld side is [here](http://lancelovinglesbian.tumblr.com)! feedback as always is encouraged !


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